Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 January 2018
172. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the Government's initiatives in his Department in 2017 that promoted State services or welfare payments, public awareness on regulatory changes and public consultations that involved advertising and promotion via television, radio, newspapers and online platforms, in tabular form; and the level of expenditure for each such initiative. [2263/18]
View answerMy Department engages in advertising of Government information which it is considered necessary to bring to the attention of citizens. Online adult passport renewals are a key part of the Passport Reform Programme and my Department advertised during 2017 in order to ensure a good uptake by citizens of this innovative service. The advertising in question took the form of a multi-format outdoor transport campaign combined with digital units in Dublin and Belfast Airports to promote the online passport service. The outdoor transport campaign ran over two two-week cycles in May and June 2017. The digital units in Dublin and Belfast Airports ran from May to August. In addition to the outdoor campaign, a further online and social media campaign was also run with ads being placed around digital articles and social media activity on travel-related themes. This part of the campaign ran from April until August of last year. The advertising was successful in helping to raise public awareness of this award-winning new service and has seen over 110,000 people avail of it to date. The total cost of the advertising is outlined in the following table.
Table 2: Advertising Costs - 2017
|
Activity |
Cost |
Supplier |
|
Public Information Campaign to raise awareness of the Online Passport Service |
€210,324.15 |
MEC |
